Radio Interview: State of the Union & Papal Encyclical

Last week, I again had the privilege of being interviewed by radio host Paul Clemens out of Louisville, Kentucky, for his radio show after the State of the Union addresss. Paul is a former student of Dr. Janet Smith who currently teaches at Detroit's Sacred Heart Major Seminary. We discussed the State of the Union speech and the Pope's new encyclical on love.

As to the State of the Union speech, these are the impressions I came to last week in listening to the speech and in my radio discussion:

1. Bush, according to those who saw the speech on TV, was at his visual best: confident and relaxed. In my view, that demeanor comes from a life of personal prayer. In the stress of our daily lives, we know that prayer keeps us going and even enables us to do things we could not do otherwise. How much more true must that be for someone in the presidency whose first order of daily business is to hear intelligence briefings outlining the latest terrorist threats on our country.

2. I will go on the record now in the midst of the great tidal waves of Bush hatred that lap back and forth in the mainstream media and in liberal circles, including liberal Catholic circles, and say that I bet Bush ends up as one of our great presidents. Why? Character, character, character. Like Churchill, Bush has the confidence and steely determination to win against our enemies. We are very lucky he was elected in 2000.

3. On a related theme, I have to say that it is conclusive and definitive, at least for me but I think for many others also, that the Democratic Party is the party of defeatism, if not treason. We see a party so full of hatred for Bush that it roots for disaster at home and abroad. When voters walk into the voting booth, how can they pull the lever for a Democratic Party that just cannot be trusted to be realistic and hard-nosed enough to take the enemy seriously? The best ally our enemies have today is the Democratic Party. There is no way I will ever entrust my future to a Democratic president. Today's Democratic Party is the party of defeat and defensiveness. Bush, in contrast, believes in staying on offense to keep our enemies off-balance. I think the inner circles of our enemies would agree with my assessment. And, by the way, I say all of this as a former Democrat who grew up with heroes such as FDR and Harry Truman. I am now happy to call the party of Lincoln my political home.

4. Check out the Powerlineblog.com for John Hinderaker's astute assessment of the State of the Union speech. If you have time, compare what John says with the distorted coverage of the mouthpiece of defeatism and Bush hatred: the New York Times.

5. As to the Pope's encyclical, no commentary can do it full justice. The Pope opens up inexhaustible vistas for thought and prayer. God is both Eros and Agape. Eros is not using the body as a commodity alienated from our minds, souls, and spirits. The human being is a unity of both body and soul, a person. Eros is an essential part of that unity that points us to God who is both eros and agape. Eros does not point us to perversion or exploitation or the ennui of immorality. Eros points us to the ecstasy of God, the perfection of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Combine the Pope's encyclical with the Theology of the Body of John Paul the Great and you get the Catholic and Christian nuclear explosion that is the real sexual revolution. What passes for the secular sexual revolution is merely sound and fury signifying nothing and ending in nothing but lassitude, malaise, disillusionment, boredom, and compulsiveness.

Those are my thoughts after last week's radio interview at WLCR AM 1040 from Louisville, Kentucky. Here is the link to learn more about this Catholic station. The Paul Clemens show airs on Wednesday afternoons from 5 to 6 p.m. for those in the Louisville area.